What Character Is That?

An Easy-access Dictionary of 5,000 Chinese Characters

This dictionary has been referred to as the Rosetta Stone of the Chinese language. A Chinese Dictionary for the Western Mind. This dictionary is a must for every Chinese language student because it is the only dictionary indexed by the root of the character, named the ?radical'. Most Chinese dictionaries are indexed by the pronunciation or the complexity of the character, that is, by the number of strokes in the character. The unique feature of this dictionary is that the characters are looked up using the English word of the radical of a character instead of the number of strokes or the pronunciation of the character. This simple rearrangement dramatically narrows the field of search for any given character. This dictionary teaches how to identify the radical and also provides its etymology to help with memorization Go also includes expansive exercises and indices designed to help the student master recognize and memorize the radicals. The dictionary features: How to use